When chemistry PhD Si Bo opened his eyes, he had transmigrated into the body of a hopeless gambler in Yuzhou, Qi Dynasty: his family fortune was gone, his child bride Su Jin was about to be sold to pay his debts, and he had a blunt-force injury to the back of his head. In this desperate situation, he spotted a distillation apparatus left behind by a dye workshop in the corner. With modern chemical knowledge as his weapon, he extracted fragrance from orchids and made mint dew, earning his first fortune with his “divine incense.” He protected Su Jin and gave refugees work.
He took Chen Hu, a brave and honest hunter, as his guard, befriended the Jiangnan peddler Liu Chengye, and brought bamboo craftsmen and refugees together to build an incense workshop. But then he uncovered the monstrous crimes of Cheng Ken, a eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs: secretly selling military provisions to aid Northern Liao, forcibly demolishing homes to build a private residence, and treating the people like ants. To protect those around him, Si Bo was forced to go to the capital. He identified forged evidence through spices and used his technical skills to break through a frame-up, eventually bringing about Cheng Ken’s death beneath a hail of stones thrown by the refugees.
But the court remained rotten, and Northern Liao’s iron cavalry still threatened the land. The refugees begged him to “make himself king.” Si Bo had only wanted to survive, but the times pushed him to shoulder a greater burden: defend Yuzhou, fight Northern Liao, take Jiangnan, and pacify the feudal lords. He went from an “incense merchant” who made a living selling fragrances to the founding emperor of the Jing Dynasty, winning the hearts of the realm.
He never forgot the half-moldy bun Su Jin gave him on the night he first simmered fragrant incense. And when he finally unified the Nine Provinces, the people did not cry, “Long live the emperor!” They cried, “Workshop Master Si, we have food to eat!” The so-called incense merchants of the realm were never merely sellers of fragrance. They were ordinary people who longed for peace and were willing to follow him in protecting the people and bringing security to the land.
